The Toronto International Porn Festival Wants to 'Democratize' Porn

"If you have a phone, either turn it off or switch it to vibrate and put it between your legs." This is Carlyle Jansen speaking, the founder and producer of the Toronto International Porn Festival, a four day event celebrating independent and alternative adult film. It's Saturday, day three of the festival, and we're in the Super Wonder Gallery in Toronto's Little Italy neighborhood. Jansen is introducing a panel called "Class in Session: Are Sex Workers and Porn Producers the New Educators?"

TIPF opened with two days of film screenings at the Ted Rogers Cinema. (This movie theater is owned by Hot Docs, the same people behind Toronto's annual documentary film festival, and while earlier that month they had screened titles like The Thin Blue Line and Don't Look Back, the moniker "hot docs" is probably way more suitable for porn.) I had never been to the festival before, and in the buildup to the screening I had envisioned a seedy old school setup filled with single men sitting alone with hands working mysteriously under their trench coats. My other concern was that everyone would look like Jenna Jameson and I would feel plain and stick out like my flat chest doesn't.

Instead, while there were a few older people there, the crowd seemed to be filled mostly with people in their 20s and 30s, artist types who all seemed to know each other. Think lots of purple hair.

"What we really want is the democratization of porn. Where everyone can get what they think is sexy out there," Jansen tells me, when I ask what she looks for during the submission process. The Toronto International Porn Festival has technically been around for 12 years, but this is the first under its current name; it used to be called the Feminist Porn Awards. Jansen acknowledges that "feminist," which was meant to be an inclusive label, could end up making the whole event feel like a club.

It's hard to define what makes porn "feminist" beyond ensuring that everyone on set is treated ethically and gives informed consent (which, as Jansen is quick to point out, happens in mainstream porn too). I know that the things that turn me on don't necessarily look like they align my everyday feminist politics; there are a couple of situations in which I'm cool with being slapped across the face and many, many more situations in which I'm not. I don't believe there is anything inherently feminist or anti-feminist about the ways in which I fuck, but I do get that certain marginalized bodies are politicized.

Jansen, who also runs the Toronto sex store Good For Her seems to get this too: it's not that mainstream porn is bad, it's just that the spectrum of sexual experience can be so much broader than what is typically depicted.

The whole thing reminds me of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but somehow even sluttier.

The screenings consisted of two-hour compilations of extended clips from films, a mix of nominees for this year's awards and Jansen's personal favorites from the last decade. I quickly got over my own nerves about watching porn projected on the big screen in a room full of strangers and realize how, well, adorable most of the movies are. In Trans Entities, by Morty Diamond, two gender nonconforming people shyly negotiate a kinky fantasy together before acting it out on screen. Samuel Shanahoy's Best Slumber Party Ever is a John Hughes meets John Waters short about a Sapphic sleepover party that takes place at "69 Dyke Street South." The movies range in production quality, and are filled with different sexual and gender identities, body types, ethnicities, and kinks. There are people with disabilities and people with body hair, traditional porn bodies and people with stretch marks. The audience is interactive, liberal in their laughter, cheering on orgasms and groaning when some of the clips end just as things are getting hot. The whole thing reminds me of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but somehow even sluttier.

When I show up to the Super Wonder Gallery on Saturday for the panel discussions, the staff and volunteers are still setting up. The plan is to have computers projecting porn clips on the gallery walls all day, but there are a few technical difficulties getting started. The coordinator apologizes to me profusely, and I tell her it's no problem.

There is a table at the gallery displaying the glass butt-plug shaped trophies from previous years' winners, as well as an array of vintage porn. The man behind the table, Nicholas Matte, is the curator of the sexual representation collection from the Mark S. Bonham Centre of Sexual Diversity Studies from the University of Toronto, and has brought some items from the archive to introduce people to the resources and information available to study. What I had assumed was a commercial endeavor was actually an academic one; in the spirit of the festival, he was there to educate, not sell.

I see a man wearing a fur trimmed velvet coat over a brocade vest opened on a bare chest, with round tinted sunglasses. "Your outfit is very seventies!" I say, approaching him.

He laughs. "Part of my soul is still in that decade."

"That's fashion," I say. "You can take what you like from an era and leave the crappy politics behind." I introduce myself and ask if I can interview him, pointing to my recorder. I ask for his name and pronouns.

"My name is Addi, but I perform under the name Malcolm LoveJoy," he says. "And my pronouns are he, she, and Love."

"What do you perform?" I ask.

"Porn," he says. Oh, right. Though all the events that weekend are open to the public, almost everyone I talk to is connected to the festival in some way: porn performers or producers with films nominated, academics and educators who are running the events, an erotica writer who sits on the jury. A film LoveJoy has starred in, Reunited (by a local indie studio called SPIT) has been nominated, and he would also be sitting on the sex education panel that afternoon.

"I would be here even if I wasn't nominated," he says. "This is my life."

"It seems to be a tight community," I say.

"There is a community. It's small and very beautiful," he says. He's a passionate and effusive speaker. "There's not that much money here. It's very professional. People still have standards. But a lot of people who are doing it are doing it out of their heart and their love for sexuality."

Aside from the porn projections and panels, there are futuristic looking goggles being passed around with the offer to experience "Virtual Reality Porn." I try on a pair, and instantly I'm in a 3D room, staring straight into the crotch of a woman spread out on a couch. "I'm going to see if I can cum harder than my friend here," she says. I turn my head and realize I can look around the virtual room. There's another naked woman sitting on the couch next to her. I keep turning my head, and suddenly the room ends and I'm staring into a black abyss, with "KINKVR.COM" flashing on the screen, like I'm in some X-rated version of that Daffy Duck cartoon where he walks through the end of the world. I quickly whip my head back around so I'm back in the real fake reality. I've never tried VR before, but in the movies I've seen, it's always interactive. I reach out in front of me to see if that does anything (it doesn't), and I realize how I must look, standing in the middle of the gallery, wearing a VR headset, groping invisible tits. The woman on the screen is about to cum, but then a warning flashes in front of me: "5% battery power. Please charge device." I take the goggles off. I guess future porn has its own kinks to work out.

Sunday night is the awards ceremony, taking place at The Great Hall, a venue I had previously only attended for concerts. I wasn't sure how formal it would be, but the dress code seems to be pretty liberal: there are tulle gowns revealing full sleeve tattoos, cocktail dresses and suits on people of all genders, jeans and corsets. I sit behind someone wearing sequined shorts, knee length rainbow socks, a harness, a leather vest, and sequined nipple pasties.

The show is late to start, but once it gets going it moves pretty quickly. There are interstitial performances by burlesque and pole performers, and the night feels both very casual and very glamorous; everyone attending seems exactly where they want to be, like they have found their people. I find myself very interested in watching the sign language interpreters onstage. I figure out the ASL for "burlesque" includes using your fingers to mime tassels in front of your chest, and that "I want to shove it up my ass" includes miming, well.

For most of the awards, there is little fanfare. The presenter would introduce the name of the category, whether it was "Hottest Orgy" or "Smutty School Teacher Award for Sex Education." There was no listing of nominees; instead, they would just announce the winner, and then a short clip would be played. Few of the winners were actually in attendance to give speeches, and for a while, it feels anticlimactic.

Before the festival started, I was worried that it would be obvious I was an outsider who stuck out in a room full of industry professionals, but everyone else was really just doing their best. In that way, the whole festival reminded me of sex itself. There was some awkward fumbling, false starts, bits that dragged, and parts that finished surprisingly quick, but once I got out of my head of what it was supposed to be like and instead accepted it for what it was, I was able to chill out and have a good time.

Malcolm LoveJoy Accepting the Golden Beaver Award

Mitchel Raphael

The announcers got to the category for "Golden Beaver Award for Canadian Content." Reunited has won. Wait, I realize. That's Malcolm LoveJoy's movie! The crowd goes wild as LoveJoy and the people from SPIT take the stage. "This is the first time I've ever won anything in my entire life!" LoveJoy says, accepting his award. He looks genuinely surprised. "This is a dream come true! My name is Malcolm LoveJoy, and I love you all!" The audience bursts into applause again, excited for LoveJoy and celebrating one of their own, and I'm right there with them.

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